


Better Late than Never

by thecosmicsleep



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, F/M, Heavy Angst, Major Character Injury, Toy soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 06:32:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15261489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecosmicsleep/pseuds/thecosmicsleep
Summary: After a firefight against raiders ends in success, MacCready decides to give Sole the toy soldier Lucy carved for him.Sole Survivor's name: Jada





	Better Late than Never

MacCready cheered as the last raider fell to the ground, a bullet between her eyes. Long limbs stretched themselves out as he bounced up to his feet, holding his hand up to the man beside him as he shouted, “You’re messing with the best!”

     “We’re always doing this,” Deacon groaned, though the amusement in his voice couldn’t be hidden. He slapped the merc’s hand in one swift move. “ _Winning_ , that is.”

     Jada snorted from behind them, shaking her head. The absolute idiocy traveling with these two tended to bring was overwhelming. Mac tried his best to look like the scary, uncaring mercenary that he advertised himself as, but she’d witnessed his small smirk and amused side-eye too many times to believe it anymore. That, and his tendency to quietly make comments that mostly children found amusing when he didn’t think she was listening didn’t help his case, either. And Deacon didn’t even try to hide it, he’d make similar comments as much as if he were commenting on the rad-storm hovering in the distance—which tended to be quite frequently. Master of the obvious—and of evading the question. Traveling with the both of them at the same time was a blast, and she loved it. She loved _them_.

     She straightened, pressing a hand to her side with a wince. “You two are such nerds,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “I love…”

     “C’mon, boss,” MacCready started as Jada’s voice trailed off. He turned to face her, smirk still firmly in place. “Ya know we’re awesome, don’t lie—Boss?”

     All humor drained from his face as his eyes fell on hers. She was pale, her eyes filled with barely masked pain. The blood had seemed to flee from her face, leaving her scars much more prominent, but that wasn’t what was really worrying him. It was the blood seeping from between her fingers, the stain spreading out from her hand, slowly overtaking her abdomen. She’d been shot and neither of her companions had noticed, Mac thought, silently cursing himself.

     He glanced sidelong at the Railroad agent next to him. “Deacon, go find help,” he said quietly.

     “Don’t bother,” Jada interjected, trying and failing to lean casually against the counter beside her. “It’s just a scratch, boys, I’ll be fine.”

     “J, I really—” Deacon began, cutting off as he watched her sway slowly before collapsing, her legs no longer able to hold her weight.

     “Jada!” Mac exclaimed, crossing the small space between them to stop her from hitting the ground. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his lap, pressing his hand against the wound in her stomach. “ _Deacon. Now_ ,” he said through gritted teeth without looking up.

     The woman in his arms snorted and then gasped as the action sent pain through her body. “Jada?” she questioned, squinting up at him. “When did I become Jada to you, Mac? Don’t tell me you’re going all soft on me now.”

     His lips twitched. “Shut up, J,” he murmured. He could hear Deacon’s soft footsteps fading toward the exit. “After everything you’ve done for me, I don’t think it’s in the realm of impossibility for me to consider you a friend.”

     “Everything I’ve done,” she scoffed. “Anyone with an ounce of decency in their idiot brains would’ve done the same, MacCready. You know that.”

     “Too bad there aren’t any idiots out there like that,” he hummed. His fingers tightened on her shoulder as he studied her wound. “Jesus, Jada—why didn’t you say anything?”

     She rolled her eyes and grimaced at the hair sticking to her face. He smiled faintly as he remembered how much she hated leaving it down for that reason alone. “I didn’t say anything because I’m _fine_ ,” she replied, attempting to sit up. She winced at the movement, which didn’t help her case.

     Mac tightened his hold on her, pressing her against his chest. “No, you’re not,” he snapped. Panic was starting to set into his bones, making his voice harsher than he intended it to be. If Deacon didn’t get back soon with help, he stood a real chance of losing her.

     The thought gave him pause. He’d be alone again, he realized. She might’ve brought the group together, but there was no way in hell any of them were sticking together once Jada was gone. She was their glue, and. Oh god, he couldn’t lose her, too. Not after everything, not after witnessing just how much she cared. About him. It’d been far too long since he’d felt that warmth and losing it the first time had pushed him into a depression so deep he’d become indirectly suicidal. Losing it again…and possibly Duncan…

     He pressed his lips together and dug around in his pocket. “Hey, hey, hey,” he exclaimed softly upon realizing her eyes had closed. “Jada, open your eyes. You need to stay with me.” Stay with me; _stay with me_. The thought echoed in his mind nonstop as he watched her eyes flutter open, her pupils blown out so far they nearly encompassed all the green. “That’s it, just focus on me.”

     He turned the object in his fingers once before offering it to her. “Here, I think now might be as good a time as any to finally give this to you,” he murmured, pressing it into her hands. He watched her study it, her eyes half-lidded as she struggled to stay present. “I've been toying with the idea for a while now, but wasn't sure how you'd take it, seeing as our…uh, our arrangement isn't, well, it isn't really personal.”

     He felt more than heard her huff against his chest, possibly as an attempt to laugh, but he wasn't sure. “A toy soldier,” he heard her whisper. She was so quiet, her presence already so faint and yet still fading. _Please, God, don't do this,_ he thought, _please, not again_. Her thumb smudged blood across its face. “Didn't take you for the artistic type, Mac.”

     _Mac._ Hearing her say his name, even if it was just his last name, set fire to his nerve-endings. He could listen to her talk forever about nothing at all, but then, anything she had to say rarely meant nothing. She always spoke with purpose, could always hold her ground with words alone. Just hearing her voice hum in the distance put him at ease, if he was being honest. Not for the first time, he wondered how someone so small could be the cause of so much of his happiness.

     He smirked at her. “Well, ya ain’t wrong there,” he told her. He winced as blood smudged on her forehead as he pushed her hair off her face. “Lucy gave it to me right after we’d met, carved it herself.”

     At the mention of his wife, Jada’s eyes seemed to sharpen, her gaze focusing on his face. “Why a soldier?” she asked.

     “I, uh, I may have, y’know,” he stammered, cheeks warming with mild embarrassment. “I may have told her I was a soldier. Too embarrassed to tell her I was just some hired gun, someone paid to kill people.”

     He watched as Jada’s eyebrows furrowed, her focus fading in and out. “What…” It was getting harder for her to breathe, he realized, her breaths coming in shallow gasps. His heart hammered in his ears; she was fading much too quickly. He forced himself to take a deep breath and refocus on her, managing to catch the last part of her sentence, “…a soldier is?”

     “S’pose you’re right,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “They’re just legal guns for hire, huh?” He pressed his lips to her forehead, squeezing his eyes shut as he held her close. This wasn’t happening, it was all a bad dream. He’d wake up at any moment and Jada would be snuggled in her sleeping bag across the camp from him, her hair the only thing visible because of how long it was. Deacon would make a snide comment about him looking like he’d seen a ghost and he’d return the favor, and everything would go back to normal. Jada wouldn’t be dying in his arms, she wouldn’t have ever been dying in his arms.

     “…Robert?” Her voice was so faint, he almost didn’t catch it. _Robert?_ He pulled back in surprise, eyes wide. She’d never used his first name before, at least, not that he could recall. At any other point in time, it might’ve sent a thrill through his system, but right now? It made him feel uneasy, like she was giving up. “Why…me?” she asked when she noticed she had his attention.

     It took him a while to respond. He wasn’t quite sure what inspired him to give her the toy soldier, one of the few things of his late-wife that he had left. It meant so much to him, but it also held so much more significance than that. It was a symbol of the one person on this dying planet that had actually given a damn about him, the one person who hadn’t given a second thought to giving him everything. Someone who had cared about him as much as he had cared about them. Her.

     “Truth be told,” he started quietly, “you remind me of her in some ways. You’re a helluva lot more stubborn, but you care just as much as she did. Maybe even a little more, with all the help you try to give everyone.”

     The wry smile Jada gave him was stained with blood. “The whole dying thing is probably a big similarity, too, huh?” she joked, coughing.

     H held her closer and shook his head fiercely. “You’re not going to die, Jada,” he said sternly, trying to keep his voice strong. His own fear at the chance of losing her forever caused it to waver, ruining the firmness of the statement. “You’re going to be fine, okay? And once you feel better, I’m going to rip you a new one for letting yourself get shot. Did you forget what cover was or something?”

     The fond smile she gave him eased his nerves somewhat, but it didn’t last long before he saw her eyes growing distant. And fearful. “I…” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, her breathing getting much too slow. “I don’t want to die, Robert. What if there’s an afterlife?”

     “What if there _is_?” MacCready repeated, stumped by the direction of the question. “If there is, I suppose you’ll see Nate again, right? Whatever it is, it’d certainly be better than here.” He studied the look on her face, suddenly questioning his answer. “Right? Either way, you’re not dying, Jada—it’s not something you need to worry about just yet, okay?”

     “I’ve done things I’m not proud of, MacCready,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken at all. “Things that…oh god, what if I end up in the same place as _him_?”

     He shifted so that he could cup her face in his hands, trying to get her to meet his eyes. They remained unfocused. “Jada, listen to me,” he murmured, “whoever you’re talking about, you’re never going to have to see again. Not here and not in the afterlife. You’ve done nothing to be sent to the same place as him.”

     She was crying, clearly in her own head rather than with him. Was this a sign? That she was about to leave him forever? He had to do something to get her focus back, to make sure she didn’t slip away.

     “Being born was enough,” she whispered before he could say anything. “Robert, I—I’m sorry. I tried my best, I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.” Her words were fast, panicked. It seemed like she felt she couldn’t get them out quick enough. His heart sped up in response. “Please, don’t…don’t give up. Duncan’s going to get better, I promise…”

     “Shh, shh, shh,” he hushed her. He smoothed more hair out of her face, leaving his hand cupping her cheek so he could run his thumb along it. “Everything’s going to be all right, you don’t need to panic. You’ll be all right, and when this is all over, we’ll…that is, if you want to, we’ll go see Duncan for ourselves. Let him meet the woman who saved his life.”

     And maybe by then he’d have been able to figure out what all these things he was feeling meant. By then, maybe he could tell her how he felt, how she made him feel. About how much lighter the weight of the world seemed to be with her around. The way that finding the cure for Duncan had seemed so easy because of her, so plausible. How he could see her becoming a permanent part of his life, hoping it was in a certain form, but being okay with her just being around.

     “And, who knows, maybe we’ll move around just the three of us,” he continued, lost in his own thoughts. “Or maybe we’ll just stay in one area, let Duncan grow up with familiar faces.” There was a long silence as his musings came to an end and he realized she hadn’t said anything in a little while. Hadn’t moved, either. “Jada?”

     She was too still, too quiet. Her eyes were closed and no amount of his pestering would make her open them again. A lump formed in his throat as his panic turned into full-fledged terror, his arms around her turning into a death grip. He pulled her further into his chest and buried his face in her neck, rocking the two of them back and forth. His breathing was ragged and his eyes burned as he struggled not to burst into tears, struggled to be strong.

     “No, no,” he whispered. He could feel the skin of her neck dampening. “Jada, no, please. Come back, please, come back. Don’t go. Don’t leave me here.”

     Where was Deacon, damn it? Couldn’t he move faster?

     “ _Please_.”


End file.
